


Maybe Next Time

by FortuneSurfer



Category: Justified
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Office Party, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sniper Mentality, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 22:00:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20785718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortuneSurfer/pseuds/FortuneSurfer
Summary: Tim is among friends, who are also drinking, and not to suppress but to express something (who is having what again?), and everything is in its right place. That is, until...





	Maybe Next Time

**Author's Note:**

> At my friend's request.
> 
> I love feedback and talking to fellow fans, and so, I would love to hear if you like or dislike the story I am sharing with you!

Given his habits, it's quite astonishing that he's never been in this bar before, but topographically speaking, Tim still manages to take the best position in the room when he relocates from the bar stool to the couch in the corner when the colleagues he was talking to before decide to play the pool.

From where he is now, it’s so invitingly easy to study the environment of their office-but-not-actually-in-the-office-building party that Tim, being alone and drunk and all, allows his hazy brain to translate the talking, and laughing, and dancing, as well as drinks and food being distributed and consumed into patterns, and rhythms, and trajectories. Allows it to take in the familiar and reassuring fluidity of everything that makes him semi-consciously change the way he is breathing.

He is among friends, who are also drinking, not to suppress but to express something (who is having what again?), and everything is in its right place.

That is, until Laurie is laughing and telling Jordan how he should be on his way home now.

And maybe for a second, which lasts for at least half an hour in Tim’s perception, time freezes because the echo of an echo of a memory comes back to him as their postures and faces suddenly present a re-enactment of another scene. This feeling is immediately followed by the oppressive realization throbbing with the pulse in his trigger finger that, _no, I’m sorry, but he won’t be going home._

Then, Tim feels his hands on his knees and remembers that he has no rifle on him. That it’s been years.

He covers his face with his palm, thinking that he needs some air, and he needs more alcohol in his blood, and he needs a distraction. Preferably a handsome one.

“Hey, Tim. Y’alright?” Raylan asks from somewhere near him.

Tim lifts his face and Raylan – hatless, slightly dishevelled, shirt unbuttoned, a drink in his hand, all casual – is more of a distraction that Tim could wish for. Tim feels a grin that’s more like a spasm of his facial muscles splitting his face.

“More than that: I’m in nirvana, man.” Confronted with Raylan’s concerned confusion, Tim mercifully adds to clarify: “Not the Kurt Cobain kind. Anyway, why you asking? Wanna have this dance?”

He asks it as sarcastically as badly he wants it; and he can’t bring himself to look at Raylan when he does.

There is a pause during which Raylan is probably sipping from his glass, and Tim tries to recognize the music that starts to play (who‘s in charge of music anyway, this place could use something from P!nk). Presently, Raylan replies above Tim’s head: “Nah, I think I love these boots too much. And the pants, and the shirt. And the general feeling of being clean if you know what I mean.”

Asshole.

“Pretty sure I can contain it,” Tim says boldly and stands up to demonstrate how fit he is despite how he might look. He has to reassess the situation when Raylan timely catches him by the arm. Tim swallows down the bilious taste that comes up in his mouth and comments to restore some of his dignity: “Well, definitely most of it.”

Raylan softly tells him that he believes him but still has to ask him about who’s driving him home tonight. Tim doesn’t want to be handed over to Rachel without getting his answer first and insists on it:

“‘S that yes or no?”

“Let’s say maybe another time.”

In all truth, somehow it does sound more like a ‘yes,’ and Tim, breathless and even a little bit more sober, really wants to push it and to ask when, but in the end he waits for this opportunity to pass and doesn’t. He justifies it to himself by thinking that in everything other than marksmanship there is always an ineradicable factor at play that beats the math of it all: luck. And he just doesn‘t have the luck of being a damsel in distress or a charismatic toothy bastard with whom Raylan drank beer in his teens; and so, time and space don’t allow for a story with a different plot in which Raylan would be this close to him.

Although, in fact, they really do.

**Author's Note:**

> OST: OK Go – Maybe This Time


End file.
